Tell me why your OS is Better? And a poll of our current OS of Choice.... (Warning RANTS inside)

[NICKel]

I created this thread because was really happy with Windows 95SE and I was miserable with ME (god we should all get checks from MS for all the sloppy and incomplete code in ME!) I switched to 2000 for a short time and was really impressed with the speed and stability, but as it was primarily a home Net/game machine I was always disappointed with driver support and video card isssues so I wait a bit and finally packed up all my belongings(digital that is) and searched for brighter pastures with Windows XP.

First let me say that XP is an all around worthy successor to 98SE, it's what ME promised, but didn't deliver. But there was one this MS promised that wasn't true. They said "XP never crashes...." Well this might be true to some extent it doesn't mean XP will sometimes be reduced to a state as so slow and utterly unusable that the only recourse is REBOOT. And all is not perfect, I am still waiting on a few dear programs that I used to run without even thinking to be compatible with XP (yes I tried the compatibility TAB!)

Now I am considering the virtues of Linux. Some of my Linux head friends swear by it.

I was wondering if all the Bells and whistles are worth the cost I spent to uprgade my OS, programs, & eventually my computer when It ran pretty stable and quickly on 98SE?



I composed a small poll to ask which os you are currently running and if you could leave a pearl of wisdom as to why you believe YOU are on the right side of the OS equation.....

THanks

PS..... If I missed an OS and you want it included PM me and I will try to add it.....

 

[kurt454]

XP Home for me. Cheaper than XP Pro, stability of Windows 2000(for me), allows me to play almost every game I own(98SE for the rest), supports all my hardware. Win 2k is a close second. Linux and *BSD are fun to learn, but not going to be my primary desktop OS yet. Never used a Mac in my life, so I don't have any comment there.

 

[oniq]

You say you use your machine primarily for net/game, I'd recommend 2K because of your stability issues with XP. Windows 2000 may not support every game, but it supports more than Linux would. I voted for Windows 2000, as I don't play games much (Other than feeding my Tetrinet Addiction), and the stability is superb. I haven't had a crash YET, after a few weeks of use. Windows XP would be a close second, if you don't have infinite loop bug problems and other crap that is associated with it.

 

[Nothinman]

I can't recommend Linux for a gaming machine (buy a console! it's cheaper over all and the games return easier) but for an anything else machine I would, the learning curve can be steep but I think it's well worth it. I now have full control over everything my PC does, something sorely missing from Windows.

If you want to spend the cash Mac OS X is really good, a lot better than Windows IMO.

 

[Sunner]

For gaming, Windows 2000.

For other stuff, Linux.

Consoles... never liked them much, the Amiga is the closest I've come, but OTOH I loved my Amiga all the more, easially the best computer I've ever owned.

 

[Mem]

For gaming and general use WinXP is the way to go,never had any problems with the OS and stability is excellent ,I don`t know what a reboot or BSOD is with WinXP .

 

[stash]

buy a console! it's cheaper over all and the games return easier

Classic....

 

[Chaotic42]

Damnit, where's Plan 9?

 

[ProviaFan]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42
Damnit, where's Plan 9?

OMG, I can't believe that you forgot QNX, too!

On a more serious note, though, I think Windows XP Pro is fine for most stuff, though Windows 2000 Pro is definitely lighter on the RAM and disk usage. Also, I'm starting to switch over to Linux more now that Microsoft is heading off in a very bad direction with their Palladium crap.

 

[drag]

I use linux! Linux ROCKS beond all beleif.

I am not saying the Windows sucks or anything it's just that Linux is better.

HEHE. (exept for games, but I got my quake3 and urban terror mod and thats all I ever wanted anyways on a PC, maybe if they had grand turismo 3 for PC's I might go back to a dual-boot system, but probably not)

It's main strength lies in it's versitility, I used to give life back to old 486's, I used it as OS for my custom-built router/firewall (old compaq 233 with 2 ethernet cards and it runs off a floppy with no harddrive), I use it for my desktop computer, Google uses it to create Beowolf clusters to run it's webservers. Most aspects of computing are encompessed by it from Alpha's and Sparcs mainframes to Macs can use Linux.

Also another strength for it is customabilty. For instance I use Enlightenment window manager to run my X windows Gui. I have it set up so I have no icons ,no menu-bars, no minimize tray (you can have em' if you want them), Just 5 multiple desktops that I can slide over one another, or zip from one another using the mousewheel and each one has it's own backgrounds. I can call up any menu I want by clicking one of the 3 mouse buttons on the background and I use Eterm (a virtual console) with a cool transperent background effect. It's the most beautiful gui interface I have ever used and a simple screenshot can't do it justice.

At one point I had 2 monitors and video cards that formed 1 large desktop that I could drag windows back and forth. ( or have them half-way on both of them) (until my heatsink fan on the 2nd video card crapped out.)

I also had a old Thinkpad laptop hooke up thru a serial cable that I used as a terminal so I could surf the internet from my couch while using my desktop computer's cpu power to run programs remotely.

It's a computer geek's dream operating system.

 

[drag]

Oh ya i forgot the one bad thing about it is it's a pain in the ass to learn howto use it if you move from Windows to Linux,
but after awile you realise it's not that much more complicated than Windoze it's just, let's say, more in your face.

 

[wizz0bang]

I can't believe it... the day has come when an MS product is closest to my open-sourced heart. I am a long time MS user/hater... I've owned, installed, cursed at and supported every MS OS since Dos 3.3 except for Win ME. My favorite OS has always been Linux (switching between Red Hat and Slackware distributions). Linux is simply put, a better OS all around, hands down. Being able to compile it with only the components you need for your system is a major boon to performance. BUT most of the apps I need/wants to use and all of my games are Win only.... so I've always had a MS box or dual boot rigs.

Along comes XP... I've liked NT since 4.0 sp3.... very stable and quite versitile. Just no gaming support Well, XP is just as stable (for me), has all the features I want, and runs every game I've thrown at it (about 25+ so far) without even tweaking the compatability tab. XP is fast (on my 800mhz 512mb anyway), feels great, and is FINALLY customizable (I can trick my buddies into thinking I am in my Red Had x-windos). I like it SOOOO much, I went from a tri-boot 2000/98SE/Red Hat setup... to just one OS ----> XP! I have even taken down my other three work stations, my KVM switch and am selling them all for extra cash as I now find my self having no need for them! XP rocks!

Perhaps I have been brainwashed... who knows. 5 years ago, if you told me I would advocate and recommend to other geeks they install a MS product, I would have laughed at you. Now I wouldn't recommend anythning else.


You asked for it:
WARNING, MAJOR MAC RANT FOLLOWS:
As for you Mac zealots with OsX.... ahahahahahah what a fiasco that is turning out to be. Just go read a few Mac tech support forums... incompatabilities up the rear! Hahahah. I've been a Mac "user" since os 7.5.1 and hated it ever since. I get more errors, more crashes, lock ups, data loss, program incompatabilities, system hangs and slow downs on Macs than I EVER have on any of my PCs... thats going back to my 8086 with 640k ram. My personal bane was the year and a half I had to use a PowerMac 6100av... oh my gosh... that is back when it was "cutting edge" the darn OS gave me so much greif... I think Win 3.11 was better, honestly. Mac users are so full of it (and them selves). This is coming from a person who has had to support them at a university with 2,000 installed PC and Macs. I must admidt, if you don't know how to install, configure and maintain a windows box (especially 95/98), you are in for a hell of a ride straight to BSOD land. But if you know what you are doing, MS products cane be more relaible.

Ok, that rant is getting old... no I don't currently own and Mac, and I've never installed OsX... but I've read about it quite a lot... all the hype reminds me of the hype around every Mac OS that has ever came out. Even die-hard Mac users will admit to the problems with past versions of MacOS, but they NEVER talk about issues with the current version... it is some religious taboo or something... and the next coming version is always heralded as the MS killer that will return Apple to it's rightful palce in the computing universe. Well, they had to kill their kernal, bastardize Unix, copy Linux features, copy PC architecture and they STILL can't get a stable platform that someone like me can use. No I don't mean grandma and her e-mail... or secretary John and his copy of Claris works... I mean someone who runs 10+ heavy apps at once (DTP, web development, CGI C++ code, compiler, graphics package, scanning software, web browser, database front end, e-mail, IIRC client, FTp program, Kazaa, etc... all at once).... back when I had win 3.11 on my 486 I was always running 4 or 5 things constantly... Macs STILL crash if you run more than two things for any length of time. DOn't belive me? Think I'm full of it? Put away your web browser, instant messenger and start doing something with your PC for a change...

Two major exceptions... Mathematica, my favorite math package, runs much better on Macs... poooo on Wolfram for being Mac Zealots. MOTU Digital Performer is my favorite MIDI sequencer... but they won't release a PC version. Jerks! Other than those two, every major APP I've needed/wanted to use is better on a Winblowz platform. Like it or not. Debate the merrits of the OS, who came up with the idea, etc... the software out there for Windows blows the software out there for Mac by a factor of 10. Here is my closing argument ----> games

Now, XP combines everything I like in all the MS oses, stability, compatability, good hardware support, large user base, fast, easy to use.... XP rules!

Hehe... that felt good!

 

[DaHitman]

Originally posted by: wizz0bang
I can't believe it...

SUuuuuuree... I don't "belive it" I think your lying through your teath... I would put money down you have never even seen Linux... since all you seem to talk about is games...

to just one OS ----> XP! I have even taken down my other three work stations

Yeah right.. sure... thats likely...



Nice troll though... good lie.

 

[RemyCanad]

Mac OS X. I am forced to use a loaned iMac to use it but its well worth it. I am actually running Mac OS X Server on it right now. And I actually use the BSD underlineing more than I do the aqua interface.
I don't really like the aqua interface to much. A lot of the problems will be fixed once I install my copy of Mac OS X Server: Jaguar. I have had it for a little over 2 and a half months and still have not installed it. I have to backup my current install and I just cant get around to doing that.

But since I know you own a PC I would just get XP Pro. That is what I am running on my athlon system and I have not had any problems, that is after I get all 9 million updates!

Also, since I got my new rig up and running I have not had to restart windows because of a problem with it yet. But I really belive it all depends on your machine and how hard you are on computers. I am hard on them but they seem to never die on me. For example we have a old win 95 machine and I used it for years with no problems. It ran great, good speed no errors nothing. I was really hard on it too. But once my brother started using it, he some how killed it. All he uses it for is AIM and it runs slower than my Pentium 75 with Win NT on it!

Well I guess I am done ranting.

 

[wizz0bang]

*evil grin*

 

[Buz2b]

I don't think this is too good of a poll because there is no contest to including the majority of the options. In my opinion there is a good mix of users here at AT but the majority would probably fall into the "average" range of home user. XP (in either flavor) is by far the most "usable" OS for that catagory. I mean who the heck in their right mind could vote for ME, 98SE, 95, OS/2, 3.1?? That's almost half the other "legitimate" offerings. Win2K is OK but not enough driver support. Linux and Unix may be good Operating Systems but they still don't have enough driver support to be serious challengers either. I do believe Linux may "get there" someday and that will be fun if they can pull it off. Mac OS-X?? Not a bad attempt but if you know any serious Mac users it is a lot of hype with many headaches thrown in for good measure.

So, I give my vote for XP Pro. But I think in the end it will not be much of a contest. Could I put up a better poll; probably not. But I can certainly critisize with the best of them! J/K

 

[Nothinman]

Win2K is OK but not enough driver support

Win2K has better driver support than XP does.

Linux and Unix may be good Operating Systems but they still don't have enough driver support to be serious challengers either.

That may have been true 2 years ago, but not any more. Sure not everything has drivers, but if you don't buy sh!t as soon as it hits market (dumb to do anyway) and don't buy off the wall brands (again, not smart in general anyway) you'll be fine.

Mac OS-X?? Not a bad attempt but if you know any serious Mac users it is a lot of hype with many headaches thrown in for good measure.

I have a friend with a TiBook and a G4 Tower and he's constantly saying how much simpler things are on his Mac than his PCs (he's a big PC user, just recently got a Mac cause of work). If your 'serious mac users' are having issues with OS X I'd say it's them, not the software. The only thing he complains about is lack of games on the Mac, it kinda sucks having a GF4 in a box and not being able to do much with it.

 

[wizz0bang]

Ok, bar-b-qing and clean up is long over... not going to a ball game or to watch fire works for the first time I can remember... so I'm bored and looking for trouble...

You caught the troll part nicely, DaHitman... but there is a great deal of truth in my previous comments. And yes, I had 4 systems at home under my desk all setup through a KVM switch until recently... now that I'm running XP I don't need them, though that's not the only reason. I no longer do tech support and don't need 4 networked boxes to create "learning scenarios." But until XP came along I really did need at least two. Since I'm not worrying about compiling anything these days (getting out of programming all together), now I only need one that won't crash (which means a separate 98se box that would crash for games). At work I always had two or three depending on needs (two PCs and a Mac). One of our stupid file server was a Mac (!@!@($&#) running Filemaker Pro for years, so to keep it simple, and to deal with complaints from Mac users (need to recreate whatever screwed up problems AppleTalk was creating.. back when it was still used), I always had a Mac on my desk (the last one was a G3 256mb running 8.1... it sucked). Once upon a time we had to support Novell servers as well... good riddance to those (they weren't bad, it's just the traffic they created with IPX/SPX cloged some of the routers on a regular basis). At work I mainly ran NT4.0 with a Remedy DBase front end, Outlook, Web browser (usually going to MS-tech support heh), a technet window, always a telnet session to my unix mail (pine still rules), an FTP client and other things one shouldn't have at work (gotta download files where ya have bandwidth man- you're talking to a guy who went into the networking clsoet and hooked his workstation directly to a 100Mb switch against policy). Sometimes a web package (MS front page) or another telnet window to unix vi so that I can edit a coupla web files. I ran NT4 for moths at a time like this, only restarting every couple of months when I had to update something that required a reboot. The Mac G3 would clog up if I tried to use Outlook, run word, run explorer, and use FileMaker Pro's front end all at the same time. Heheh. The Mac Guru's in my area always said it was due to the fact that I was using Office/Explorer (MS products). But even when I ran Claris and Netscape, the thing was a dog. That's comparing a PII 266 with a G3 233. Granted that was two years ago... left that job and went on to other things... but it gave me a "feel" for using Macs. I left just as the G4 machines were shipping with flat panels. I never had a G4 of my own to play with (though I was drueling over the design of the powercube!), there were many in the office. Playing Quake3 arena was a big past time after hours there... and on my home machine that, according to Apple's bench marks wasn't 1/3rd as fast as a high end G4, my simpleton home celeron 333mhz beat the pants off it in Quake in terms of FPS. Though that's probably due to a decent video card vs. the ATI rage garbage that shipped with G4 mahines initially. Then I bought my AMD 800mhz rig and used it as my main home system... my 333mhz was relegated to my Linux "server" it mainly was used for image processing of astronomical images (my other hobby) using FITS, playing with all the cool little apps available for astronomers under Linux, occasionally playing a game, occasionally web browsing and occasionally just tweaking it for fun. I put Linux on my main box because it would process files MUCH quicker. So I had tri booting win98se (c: drive), win2000 pro (d: drive), Red Hat (e: drive). I edited the NTloader to point to the Red Hat distribution, it actually worked.... up till then I had always used LILO. Though I rarely used Linux on this box. My other boxes were for various specialty purposes (print server/firewall that I no longer need). I had a grand total of 81 cables behind my desk. That's 4 pcs, stereo system, 8-port hub, 4-port KVM switch, extensive MIDI rig with several modules, keyboard and USB MIDI interface and my printer, scanner, web cam, digicam interface plus change. Suffice it to say I've had a lot of experience with various OS environments...

Now I'm running one PC with XP and doing everything I need to... am quite happy with it too!

As to Linux... here is the list of linux CDs within reach of my desk at the moment:
Red Hat 6.0
Red Hat 6.1
Red Hat 6.2
Caldera 2.2
Caldera 2.4
Slackwre 7.1
Suse 6.2
I've tossed many times this out or given them away over the years too. These are all distributions I've isntalled and used over the years. Some are CheapBytes CDs, some are free copies from Linux Users Group meetings (I'm a founding member of my local group BTW), and some are full dist with multiple CDs. I usually configure my workstation for gnome... love gnu and open source... have been an HPUX rat and C++ programmer for years... but when it comes down to it, I'm a gamer. Love Might and Magic series, various RTS and FPS. I'm just aobut to order a P4 1.6a and 512mb DDR JUST for gaming (shooting for 2.4ghz of course)... my 800mhz AMD w/ 512mb SDRAM and GF3 is fine for my practical uses, but is a dog with games. I've been playing Morrowind and it is too slow on my rig. So yes, a serious geek can still act like a gamer... ever since the Kings Quest days, baby! (actually before that on my Atari 800 with a tape drive and 300bps modem playing MULE hehe). I've also been an Atari ST nut, Amigia lover and one time OS/2 user. But that's all ancient history.

Comes down to this... XP works and _I_ like it. Maybe I'll wake up and come to my senses... but right now I'm still on the honey moon after less than six months. (did Bill Gates put something in my food?)

Keep the gripes and arguments coming... I used to be a major MS basher... the only thing I liked doing more was trolling on Mac Zealot forums hehe (you can tell I'm good a bashing Macs).

(P.S. for those who haven't figured it out yet... I'm TROLLING for a good argument, intentionally agrivating my opponents hoping for a friendly conversation about experiences with PCs... not a falme war about you suck and you're full of lies- this board is about discussion... I'm givingmy opinions).

 

[wizz0bang]

Win2K has better driver support than XP does.

I have to agree with you here. My only peeve in switching from win98se/win2000 was that some devices only had beta drivers available. My Diamond SupraMAX USB v.92 modem wouldn't even work under XP "." I'm sure Diamond will get off their kiester and fix it... but I just went back to using a USR serial modem for the time being.

 

[Nothinman]

I'd like to read wizz0bang's reply to HitMan but I can't because of the lack of formatting, it hurts my eyes.

 

[drag]

Definatily Linux's bane is games.... To bad too.

All linux distros have to do is make sure that there is proper gaming support in Linux and Linux would OWN the computer geek market.....

Linux is super-custumizable you could devote all you cpu cycles and memory cycles to running games and still then be able to get it back into normal multiuser mode with just a simple shell script..... I could see a 5% - 10% boost in performance from doing just that over any microsoft product.

Just think about all those people spending hours and hours every week trying to eak the most out of their systems, with cpu upgrades, overclocking, water cooling, heat sinks on video cards etc etc. How long would it take the gaming community to jump ships! And with Linux built to be the ultimate hacker (programmer) OS then you could easily create cheap (less overhead) games that will run in their native enviroment on the consumer side....

Allas such a dream seems so far away, so illisionary, so elusive, like a mirage.... With the death of Loki and such bussinesses. It almost seems like suicide to develope games for linux. All we need is some major gaming companies to realize they could design a Linux OS just to run games so people could dual-boot or learn howto customize there own OS's for the games.....

Like that will ever happen.... :-(

 

[wizz0bang]

Add BeOS to the list... I used to run that... pretty neat, but no games

Also, add Solaris as well Probably not popular with this crowd, but back in my CS days having a Sparc was cool and I know a lot of people who are programmers have one on their desk at work.

 

[Sunner]

wizz0bang, I think you should apply for this.
You'd win in a heartbeat.

 

[Nothinman]

Also, add Solaris as well Probably not popular with this crowd, but back in my CS days having a Sparc was cool and I know a lot of people who are programmers have one on their desk at work.

Solaris is hardly a desktop OS, I know that wasn't mentioned in the topic but it's obvious that's what he means.

And I have a Sparc on my desk (and Ultra1 infact) and it's not running Solaris.

 

[wizz0bang]

Sunner: hahaha, that site is hilarious! In the spirit of deviousness, I take it as a compliment.

Nothinman: Errrr... is Unix a desktop OS? I'd say it is... as is Solaris. Is it an end user OS? Most assuredly not. Neither is UNIX (even with the nicest, most friendly X-windows one can find... even with emacs ) Course we can go overboard. Include: SCO, HPUX, VMS, dadadadadaa..... which would be silly... but I think Solaris should be up there (smart-ass mode initiated)

I think XP is better precisely because it does what I need, and it does it well at that. A first for Micro$oft I am thoroughly pleased. Now, kindly attack my statements rather than me

<---- just a techno-geek, a thorn in your side and your worst nightmare (ok, more like an attack of the hick-ups, but you get the idea)

Above all... lighten up! (believe it or not, I had the infamous picture of Bill Gates as a borg over my cubicle.. and took flack from all the MCSE-"gurus" (haha) about being anti MS)